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Picnic Thank yous to all, this will take a moment...

I just wanted to be sure to thank everyone who participated and helped out in any way, your help was certainly appreciated.

It takes a number of absolutely dedicated people to pull off this picnic and its important that we acknowledge that work and dedication.

The most dedicated chowhound we all know, who proves her absolute and complete devotion to chowhound everyday is, Melanie Wong. Melanie wore many hats during the process of planning this picnic, she oversaw the finance committee and offered invaluable expertise not only with joel and jen who were also on that committee,as well as with the first aid and safety, but helped out virtually everywhere else as well. We sometimes doubted if without her ever ready bunny batteries if we could get everything done in a timely manner. Thank you Melanie for every thing youve contributed, both large and those things you think may have gone unnoticed. They certainly didnt.

Special thanks also go out to the people noted in the programs for going above and beyond the call of duty. In the program you would have found out a little more about each of them.They are:

Dana Beigel, our graphic artist who created and donated this years logo and more hours than I can tell you working with not only myself, but others in creating the mugs you all will took home with you, the picnic market products that are still for sale,the programs,the cookbook cover and the gift certificates. Her enthusiasm and eagerness to be a part of the whole process was refreshing and she was a joy to work with.

The cookbook editors: Wendy Lai, who designed the program for the cookbook as well as the illustrations, and Tida Beattie, neither of whom could be with us for the picnic,but worked just as hard as anyone who was there. I hope you all had a chance to glance through the hard copy of it as you arrived. As a thank you for coming each of you will be receiving a copy thru email, so look for it in your inbox in the near future. It contains recipes from all over the globe, in every category of food weve stuffed ourselves with. It was a labor of love for them, I hope you enjoy it.

Jen Maiser who was a co-chair for the finance committee and was responsible for accepting and processing registration and maintaining and updating the spread sheet that was used for master planning. Its what she does for a living, and she does a wonderful job. She was also responsible for confirmations.

Joel Weinstein who we know better as jawieno, also sat as a co-chair on the finance committee among a myriad of other duties. Joel collected monies and processed them, he set up and maintains the chow picnic store and was always there with answers. Thank you joel.

Diana Wynne who we know better as windy set up the program that processed all the food committee resources. Which means that she kept track of who signed up for what, where the holes were and took care of balancing our tables. It was quite a task and one that we thank her for.

We had a number of Co-chair committees this year to help facilitate the planning of our picnic they are:

We also want to be sure to thank all the nameless volunteers who helped on these committees during the picnic to make our day the lovely one it was. We are truly a community, one that eats together, one that plays together and one that is not afraid to do a little work together. For all of that thank you.

Wed like to thank our sponsors as well:

Apple Market, Novato: beverages, ice and prizes

Borage florist, Glen Park, San Franciso: sunflowers

Sur La Table, San Francisco: Prizes

And all the private individuals who have donated time, monies and products to make the picnic possible.

And finally, let us not forget the reason we are all gathered together, Chowhound itself. As we all know the site is hanging by a thread and every little thing that we can do to assist monetarily helps, there will be a donation from our picnic today in that vein and I would encourage all of you to consider either a good will contribution, a purchase from the picnic store or from the chowmarket. Theres lots to buy and the holidays are just around the corner. We all need to assist in keeping our site solvent.

Congratulations to those who won and kudos to all the rest of you who brought deliciousness in your picnic baskets.